BRAZIL, ARGENTINA, URUGUAY – NEOLIBERAL RECONQUERING OF LATIN AMERICA

BRAZIL AND THE NEOLIBERAL MEDIA – PROPAGANDA WAR

DILMA ROUSSEFF met with international media without BRAZILIAN giants like GLOBO, the country's largest media outlet, which has been accused of coup-mongering.

As BRAZIL spirals further into its worst political crisis seen in decades, President DILMA ROUSSEFF has tried to break the one-sided media narrative on the situation that’s been dominated by international press swooning over anti-government protests along with elite-backed local media accused of whipping up support for a coup.

Background Information:

MAURICIO MACRI AND THE CLARIN MEDIA GROUP

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Since 2003 the media giant CLARIN GROUP and LA NACION have been supporting MACRI and thus are the main and powerful “invisible opposition” which oppose the current government.Misinformation, lack of objectivity etc. both in CLARIN GROUPS TV News Channels as well as print media are daily occurrence in ARGENTINA. Mainstream Media are facing “credibility issues” around the globe and are engaged in an Information war, but in ARGENTINA the Info war has reached staggering proportions and thus cannot be seen as an impartial entity.

ROUSSEFF held a private media briefing with journalists from the NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, LA JORNADA, LE MONDE, EL PAIS, and DIE ZEIT. Meanwhile, she sent her chief of staff JAQUES WAGNER to meet with other international media in RIO DE JANEIRO. BRAZILIAN media were blocked from attending.

WAGNER said BRAZILIAN media coverage is “out of step” with the crisis with “obvious” efforts to campaign tirelessly for a particular end, LA REPUBLICA reported.

ROUSSEFF spoke about the fragility of BRAZIL’S relatively young democracy since the military dictatorship ended in 1985, saying that although the days of strong-arm coups are a thing of the past in LATIN AMERICA, BRAZIL is living an attempt at a “coup against democracy” through an impeachment process without legal footing.

FACING ‘COUP AGAINST DEMOCRACY,’ BRAZIL TURNS TO GLOBAL MEDIA

“We in BRAZIL have had military coups. In a democratic system, coups change their method,” ROUSSEFF said, according to an interview published in EL PAIS. “And impeachment without legal basis is a coup. It breaks the democratic order. That’s why it’s dangerous.”

Background Information: 

THE POWER OF LATIN AMERICAN MEDIA CONGLOMERATES

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CLARIN - SOWING THE SEEDS OF DOUBT AMONG ARGENTINE'S

THE OPPOSITION IS CLARIN -THE NEOLIBERAL CONGLOMERATE

And local media has played a role. In BRAZIL’S intensely concentrated media landscape, outlets like GLOBO, owned by and aligned with the country’s dictatorship-linked economic elite, have been criticized for “coup-mongering” and supporting the idea of military intervention.

Analyst SYLVIA MORETZSOHN, media professor at the Fluminense Federal University, argues that GLOBO has acted more like a political party than a media outlet by using its power to sway public opinion against the president. MORETZSOHN told BRASIL DE FATO that GLOBO has used the “noble cause” of combatting corruption worked to “create the conditions for a coup.”

With ROUSSEFF’S Workers’ Party, or PT, pushing progressive policies for over a decade since the election of her predecessor LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA in 2002, the country’s wealthy elite and right-wing political factions have grown frustrated by their inability to boot the PT from power at the ballot box.

Background Information: 

SAME STRATEGY IN ARGENTINA

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HOW CLARIN MEDIA GROUP,THE EQUIVALENT TO BRAZIL'S GLOBO MEDIA CONGLOMERATE, HELPED WIN MAURICIO MACRI ARGENTINE'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

ROUSSEFF’S opponents have latched on to widespread corruption scandals and increasing probes into fraud as a justification to try to take down the government by trying to impeach the president or forcing her to resign.

The irony is that opposition politicians, including Vice President MICHEL TEMER, who would take over if ROUSSEFF stepped down and house speaker EDUARDO CUNHA, who is spearheading the impeachment attempt, are more deeply embroiled in corruption than ROUSSEFF or her PT.

“I recommend that you ask who benefits from this,” ROUSSEFF told EL PAIS. “Many of whom haven’t even appeared on the scene, but they are behind, at the bottom.”

Related topics on the silent coup in Latin America:

AN ORCHESTRATED SCANDAL

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COUP – MONGERING CLARIN MEDIA GROUP – COLLABORATOR OF THE FASCIST 1976 -83 MILITARY JUNTA

The coup-mongering CLARÍN media monopoly, whose owner was a collaborator of the fascist 1976-83 military junta, trumpeted in its Feb. 1 edition, based on some evidence found at his apartment that NISMAN had actually intended to issue an arrest warrant for FERNÁNDEZ.

VULTURE FUNDS ELLIOTT ASSOCIATES AND AURELIUS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT ALSO TARGET BRAZIL

The same ELLIOTT ASSOCIATES and AURELIUS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT vulture funds that have preyed on ARGENTINA for years to overturn its sovereign debt restructuring and force it to its knees, are also targeting BRICS member BRAZIL for destabilization, using a corruption scandal at the giant state oil firm PETROBRAS to either force President DILMA ROUSSEFF into line, or oust her from office. ROUSSEFF was the head of PETROBRAS'S board of directors from 2003 to 2010, during the time an alleged bribery and corruption scandal at the company took place. The LONDON ECONOMIST has suggested she could be impeached.

ARGENTINA’S UNCERTAIN PROSPECTS - A COUNTRY RUN PER DECREE

ARGENTINA UNDER MACRI WILL SUCCUMB TO THE USA, THUS BEING THE NEW PUPPET OF THE US NEOCONSERVATIVES 

The real reason why the INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS and the corporate media denounce ARGENTINA

ARGENTINE'S CLASS STRUGGLE

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THE NEW YORK TIMES CRITICAL VIEW ON ARGENTINE'S NEWLY ELECTED PRESIDENT MACRI

What Obama Should Know About Macri’s Argentina

By GASTÓN CHILLIER and ERNESTO SEMÁNMARCH 23, 2016

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During his trip to Argentina this week, President Obama is unlikely to visit Milagro Sala. A prominent social activist in the northwestern province of Jujuy, Ms. Sala was arrested in January at the behest of Gov. Gerardo Morales, a political ally of the country’s new president, Mauricio Macri.

There has been international outrage over her detention; Pope Francis, the United Nations and Amnesty International have expressed concern. Not the White House: When announcing Mr. Obama’s visit, it thanked Mr. Macri for “his contributions to the defense of human rights in the region.”

Mr. Obama’s historic trip to Cuba has all the pageantry of a farewell to the Cold War in Latin America. His visit to Havana will serve as a symbolic climax in the normalization of American relations with Cuba’s Communist government. But his excursion to Argentina has a very different resonance.

Shortly before Mr. Obama’s arrival in Buenos Aires, his administration announced the declassification of United States government documents relating to Argentina’s 1976-83 military dictatorship. Yet the visit is not about the current state of human rights, but about free trade and hemispheric security.

An acknowledgment of the malign role the United States played in the early years of the dictatorship is welcome, if overdue. But to ignore the red flags on human rights raised by the recent actions of Argentina’s new ruling party is a worrying reminder of that legacy. For Mr. Macri, Mr. Obama’s visit is already an endorsement.

Photo

Protesters last month demanded the release of the prominent social activist Milagro Sala, who was arrested in January. CreditNatacha Pisarenko/Associated Press

The arrest of Ms. Sala illustrates the Argentine government’s new hard-line approach. Her organization played an important role in providing for socially excluded groupsoffering them housing, jobs and education. Ms. Sala was detained for leading a protest of cooperative workers, the unemployed and indigenous people in one of the country’s poorest provinces. Later, she was accused of embezzling public funds. That judicial investigation must run its course, but due process demands that she should not be imprisoned in the meantime.

This arbitrary detention comes amid a rash of measures taken by the Macri administration that have weakened the rule of law on the pretext of security, economic freedom and the war on drugs. In January, within weeks of taking office, Mr. Macri declared an emergency that allowed military forces to shoot down unidentified planes suspected of drug trafficking.

In effect, the president had decreed a de facto death penalty without trial. This policy has been criticized as an example of the “narcotización” of public safety. It is counter to the core principles of Argentina’s post-dictatorship reforms that prohibit military intervention in domestic security.

Soon after Mr. Macri’s inauguration, the highest court in the capital, Buenos Aires, ruled that police officers could demand identification from citizens there without probable cause, a ruling that gives a green light to harassment based on prejudice. In an equally troubling move, the federal government recently unveiled a new protocol for policing protests that gives the authorities more power to put down and criminalize demonstrations; this in a country where people value the right of free assembly and often take to the streets to fight for their rights.

Argentina’s economic and political meltdown in 2001 conclusively demonstrated that the free market approach of the 1990s had not made life better for ordinary people. Yet, Mr. Macri and his team are reviving failed policies of the past. With commodity prices in decline, they want to attract foreign investment by cutting their way to competitiveness: reducing public spending and shrinking government.

At the same time, the administration has lifted controls on currency exchange, boosting inflation. Some analysts predict that it will exceed the official target for 2016 of 20 to 25 percent.

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Despite campaign vows to strengthen democratic institutions, President Macri is governing in the other direction. In December, he tried to appoint two new Supreme Court justices by fiat, bypassing Senate approval. Facing an outcry, the president backpedaled and sentthe nominations to the Senate.

In another highhanded move, Mr. Macri used executive orders to alter a cornerstone of media law that, while poorly enforced by the previous administration, had amplified freedom of expression by bolstering anti-monopoly regulations. Such a presidential intervention would be appalling in any circumstances, but in the context of Argentina’s political polarization and other repressive measures is cause for alarm.

The risk of militarizing public order, the weakening of institutional restraints on executive power, the criminalization of protest and a fixation on promoting free-market orthodoxies — none of this has good echoes in Latin America. The United States supported many of the region’s dictators in the 1970s and ’80s so that they would serve as local guarantors of free trade and security against Communism.

Only after the inauguration in 1977 of President Jimmy Carter did the United States try to curb the continent’s repressive forces. Important as this was, it could not compensate for the decades when the United States, while claiming to defend democracy, had aided Latin America’s dictators.

Mr. Obama surely wants to put that past behind him. But during his administration, the United States has encouraged the destabilization of democracy in Honduras and Haiti, presumably in hopes that more favorable commercial partners or allies in the war on drugs would take over.

The United States’ decision to declassify more documents relating to Argentina’s dictatorship is an important step that could enable further judicial investigations of crimes against humanity. But Mr. Obama should not now endorse state violence and ideological bigotry as acceptable side effects of the United States’ larger goals of promoting free markets and security cooperation.

ARGENTINA - ON THE ROAD TO THE BAD OLD DAYS

A presidential visit to Argentina that neglects to notice how Mr. Macri’s government is undermining human rights and democratic institutions — and instead pours empty praise on his policies — will rightly be read as a return to the bad old days.

Gastón Chillier is the executive director of the Center for Legal and Social Studies in Buenos Aires. Ernesto Semán is a history professor at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies.

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LATIN AMERICA AND THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS

  

LULA AND THE BRICS IN A FIGHT TO THE DEATH

By Pepe Escobar

"Information Clearing House" - "RT" - “BRICS” is the dirtiest of acronyms in the Beltway/Wall Street axis, and for a solid reason: the consolidation of the BRICS is the only organic, global-reach project with the potential to derail Exceptionalistan’s grip over the so-called “international community.”

GEOPOLITICAL PSYOPS

So it’s no surprise the three key BRICS powers have been under simultaneous attack, on many fronts, for some time now. On RUSSIA, it’s all about UKRAINE and SYRIA, the oil price war, the odd hostile raid over the ruble and the one-size-fits-all “RUSSIAN aggression” demonization. On CHINA, it’s all about “CHINESE aggression” in the SOUTHCHINA Sea and the (failed) raid over the SHANGHAI/SHENZHEN stock exchanges.

BRAZIL is the weakest link among these three key emerging powers. Already by the end of 2014 it was  clear the usual suspects would go no holds barred to destabilize the seventh largest global economy, aiming at good old regime change via a nasty cocktail of political gridlock (“ungovernability”) dragging the economy to the mud.

THREAT TO THE MONETARY MONOPOLY OF THE ANGLO SAXON ESTABLISHMENT 

 

Myriad reasons for the attack include the consolidation of the BRICS development bank; the BRICS’s concerted push for trading in their own currencies, bypassing the US dollar and aiming for a new global reserve currency to replace it; the construction of a major underwater fiber-optic telecom cable between BRAZIL and EUROPE, as well as the BRICS cable uniting SOUTH AMERICA to EAST ASIA – both bypassing US control.

And most of all, as usual, the holy of the holies – connected with Exceptionalistan’s burning desire to privatize BRAZIL’S immense natural wealth. Once again, it’s the oil.

GET LULA OR ELSE

WikiLeaks had already exposed how way back in 2009 Big Oil was active in BRAZIL, trying to modify – by all extortion means necessary – a law proposed by former president LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA, known as LULA, establishing profitable state-run PETROBRAS as the chief operator of all offshore blocks in the largest oil discovery of the young 21st century; the pre-salt deposits.

Lula not only kept Big Oil – especially EXXONMOBIL and CHEVRON – out of the picture but he also opened BRAZILIAN oil exploration to CHINA’S SINOPEC, as part of the BRAZIL-CHINA (BRICS within BRICS) strategic partnership.

Hell hath no fury like Exceptionalistan scorned. Like the Mob, it never forgives; LULA one day would have to pay, like PUTIN must pay for getting rid of US-friendly oligarchs.

The ball started rolling with EDWARD SNOWDEN revealing how the NSA was spying on BRAZILIAN President DILMA ROUSSEFF and top PETROBRAS officials. It continued with the fact that the BRAZILIAN Federal Police cooperate, receive training and/or are fed, closely, by both the FBI and CIA (mostly in the anti-terrorism sphere). And it went on via the two-year-old “Car Wash” investigation, which uncovered a vast corruption network involving players inside PETROBRAS, top BRAZILIAN construction companies and politicians from the ruling Workers’ Party.

The corruption network is real – with “proof,” usually oral, rarely backed up by documents, obtained mostly from artful dodgers-cum-serial liars who rat on someone as part of a plea bargain.

But for the “Car Wash” prosecutors, the real deal was, from the beginning, how to ensnare LULA.

ENTER THE TROPICAL ELLIOTT NESS

That brings us to the Hollywood spectacular enacted recently in SAO PAULO that sent shockwaves around the world. LULA “detained,” interrogated, humiliated in public. This is how I analyzed it in detail.

Plan A for the Hollywood-style blitz on LULA was an ambitious double down; not only to pave the way for the impeachment of President DILMA ROUSSEFF under a “guilty by association” stretch, but to “neutralize” LULA for good, preventing him from running for office again in 2018. There was no Plan B.

Predictably – as in many an FBI sting – the whole op backfired. LULA, in a political master class of a speech beamed live across the country, not only convincingly clad himself as the martyr of a conspiracy, but also re-energized his troops; even respectable conservatives vocally condemned the Hollywood show, from a minister in the Supreme Court to a former justice minister, as well as top economist BRESSER PEREIRA, one of the founders of the PSDB – the former social democrats turned Exceptionalistan-allied neoliberal enforcers and leaders of the right-wing opposition.

LATIN AMERICAN CLASS STRUGGLE – FROM BRAZIL TO ARGENTINA

BRESSER actually stated the BRAZILIAN Supreme Court should intervene on Car Wash to prevent abuses. LULA, for instance, had asked for the Supreme Court to detail which jurisprudence was relevant to investigate the accusations against him. Moreover, a lawyer on center stage during the Hollywood blitz said LULA answered all questions during the almost four-hour interrogation without blinking – questions he had already answered before.

Lawyer CELSO BANDEIRA DE MELLO, for his part, went straight to the point: the BRAZILIAN upper middle classes – which include a largely appalling lot wallowing in arrogance, ignorance and prejudice, whose dream is a condo in MIAMI - are fearful and terrified to death that LULA may run, and win again, in 2018.

Background Information:

THE ARGENTINE COMPARISON

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ARGENTINE'S CLASS STRUGGLE

ARTIFICIAL CRISIS

And that brings us to the judge and executioner of the whole drama: SERGIO MORO, Car Wash’s leading actor.

MORO’S academic career is hardly exciting. He’s not exactly a theorist heavyweight. He graduated as a lawyer in 1995 in a mediocre university in the middle of nowhere in one of BRAZIL’S southern states and made a few trips to the US, one of them financed by the State Department to learn about money laundering.

As I noted before, his chef-d’oeuvre is an article published way back in 2004 in an obscure magazine (in PORTUGUESE only, titled Considerations about Mani Pulite, CEJ magazine, issue number 26, July/September 2004), where he clearly extols “authoritarian subversion of juridical order to reach specific targets” and using the media to intoxicate the political atmosphere.

In a nutshell, judge MORO literally transposed the notorious 1990s Mani Pulite (“Clean Hands”) investigation from ITALY to BRAZIL – instrumentalizing to the hilt mainstream media and the judiciary to achieve a sort of “total delegitimization” of the political system. But not the whole political system; just the Workers’ Party, as if the comprador elites permeating BRAZIL’S rightwing spectrum were cherubic angels.

Background Information:  

MEDIA INFLUENCE IN LATIN AMERICA

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HOW THE CLARIN MEDIA GROUP HELPED WIN MAURICIO MACRI ARGENTINE'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

WAR BY MEDIA AND THE TRIUMPH OF PROPAGANDA

So it comes as no surprise that MORO’S prime sidekick as Car Wash unrolled is the MARINHO family’s oligopoly, the GLOBO media empire

– a nest of reactionary, and not very clever, vipers who entertained very cozy relations with the BRAZILIAN military dictatorship from the 1960s to the 1980s. Not by accident, GLOBO was informed about LULA’S Hollywood-style “arrest” way before the fact, allowing it to invest in CNN-style blanket coverage.

MORO is viewed by legions in BRAZIL as an indigenous ELLIOT NESS. Other lawyers who have closely followed his work though hint he harbors the warped fantasy of a Workers’ Party as a mob leeching and plundering the state apparatus with the aim of delivering it, in pieces, to trade unions.

According to one of these lawyers who talked to BRAZILIAN independent media, a former president of the Lawyers’ Association in Rio, MORO is surrounded by a bunch of young fanatical prosecutors, with little juridical knowledge, and posing as the BRAZILIAN ANTONIO DI PIETRO (but without the solidity of the “Clean Hands” MILANESE prosecutor). Worse, MORO is oblivious that the implosion of the ITALIAN political system led to the rise of BERLUSCONI. In BRAZIL, it would certainly lead to the rise of a clown/village idiot supported by the GLOBO Empire, whose oligopolistic practices are quite Berlusconian.

THE DIGITAL PINOCHETS

A case can be made that the Hollywood blitz on LULA holds a direct parallel to the first attempt at a coup d’etat in CHILE in 1973, which tested the waters in terms of popular response before the real deal. In the BRAZILIAN remix, assorted GLOBO media maggots pose as digital PINOCHETS. At least many a street in SAO PAULO now bears graffiti to the effect of “Military coup – Never again.”

WHITE COUP INSTEAD OF MILITARY

Yes, because this is all about a white coup – in the form of a ROUSSEFF impeachment and sending LULA to the gallows. But old (military) habits die hard; GLOBO media maggots are now extolling the Army to take to the streets to “neutralize” popular militias. And this is just the beginning. Right-wingers are getting ready for a national mobilization, calling for – what else – ROUSSEFF’S impeachment.

Car Wash’s merit is to investigate corruption, collusion and traffic of influence in abysmally corrupt BRAZIL. But everyone, every political faction, should be investigated – including those representing BRAZILIAN comprador elites. That’s not the case. Because the political project allied with Car Wash couldn’t care less about “justice”; the only thing that matters is to perpetuate a vicious political crisis as a means to drag the seventh largest economy in the world into the mud and reach the Holy Grail: a white coup, or good ol’ regime change. But 2016 is not 1973, and the whole world by now knows who’s a sucker for regime change.

SAUDI ARABIAN KING TO MAKE HISTORIC VISIT TO ISRAEL

THE TWO COUNTRIES ARE TO ESTABLISH FULL-FLEDGED DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS

Via AWDnews

SAUDI foreign minister: His Royal Highness King SALMAN BIN ABDUL AZIZ shall make a history-making visit to the democratic state of ISRAEL in mid-July; the King wishes to follow in the footsteps of the late president SADAT of EGYPT

The SAUDI foreign minister , ADEL AL-JUBEIR in a joint press conference with his EGYPTIAN counterpart SAMEH SHOUKRY reiterated that SAUDI ARABIA wishes to establish a full-fledged diplomatic relations with the State of ISRAEL , hope to see the two-state solution achieved and a durable peace prevails in the volatile MIDDLE-EAST region.

"My sovereign, the King, May Allah protect Him, has been expressing his sincere interest since his auspicious coronation in 2015, to turn a new page on bitter ARAB-ISRAELI history. IRAN—  our arch enemy— pursues malicious attempts to cause yet another Arab revolt against the Jewish nation, thus we have a common enemy [IRAN] which must be vanquished through series of joint efforts," the GERMAN Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) quoted the SAUDI chief diplomat as saying.

But to preclude IRAN from exploiting the growing anti-ISRAELI sentiments in the region, added Mr. AL-JUBEIR, My King has this stunning temerity and great courage to end MIDDLE-EAST'S calamities and nearly 70-year endless PALESTINIAN crisis by officially recognizing ISRAEL as a JEWISH democratic nation and ultimately paying a state visit to TEL AVIV in mid-July this year , exactly as late EGYPTIAN President ANWAR SADAT landed at BEN-GURION Airport, opening the path for peace for next generations ," minister AL-JUBEIR told AFP, saying, His Majesty knows no fear in this regard and is ready to pay the price for a comprehensive peace with ISRAEL .We wish to see IRAN and its proxies suffer and seethe with anger.

"IRAN is like an insecure child who craves for international attention and I believe IRANIANS are completely detached from the reality by not accepting ISRAEL as an undeniable reality. Today, the democratic state of ISRAEL is the indispensable part of MIDDLE-EASTERN identity and I was personally enraged by TEHRAN'S preposterous support for these PALESTINIAN thugs that IRANIANS dub 'local resistance movements', stabbing innocent civilians in ISRAELI cities and streets," DEUTSCHE Welle cited the SAUDI minister.

EAST AFRICA AND ISRAEL

SIX EAST AFRICAN COUNTRIES BID FOR ISRAEL’S HELP IN WAR ON ISLAMIST TERROR

via DEBKAfile's

Co-opting ISRAEL to EAST AFRICA’S struggle against encroaching Islamist terror topped the agenda of KENYAN President UHURU KENYATTA’S talks with Prime Minister BINYAMIN NETANYAHU in JERUSALEM, DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources disclose.

Their two countries are already bound by close military and intelligence ties. KENYATTA proposed expanding this partnership into a broad new alliance, comprising ISRAEL and six EAST AFRICAN states, for launching a combined campaign to rid their countries of the jihadist ISLAMIC STATE, AL QAEDA and their affiliates, such as SOMALIA’S AL SHABAAB.

COMBINED FRONT AGAINST ISLAMIST TERROR

KENYATTA said he had been entrusted on his mission to JERUSALEM by ETHIOPIA, TANZANIA, UGANDA, RWANDA and SOUTH SUDAN. All six governments trusted in ISRAELI assistance acting as the lever for upgrading their Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which normally deals with drought and development enterprises, into a multilateral sword against ISLAMIST terror.

As an associate member of IGAD, ISRAEL would undertake to reorganize is members’ armed forces, intelligence capabilities and anti-terror bodies, and outfit them with the weapons systems and advanced electronic equipment needed to root out the scourge of terrorism.

KENYATTA emphasized that the six IGAD member states were turning to ISRAEL after taking fright from NIGERIA’S plight. Its failure to grapple with the ferocious ISLAMIST BOKO HARAM had sent oil-rich NIGERIA’S economy into freefall and devalued its currency, the NAIRA, by half.

DEBKAfile’s military and counterterrorism sources add that after many years of close military and intelligence cooperation, the KENYAN army is receiving training from ISRAELI military instructors on tactics for battling  AL SHABAB inside SOMALIA and a supply of ISRAELI weapons tailored for anti-terror warfare. ISRAELI and KENYAN officers put their heads together on the planning of Kenyan army operations in Somalia.

ISRAEL’S COUNTER TERRORISM SUCCESS

Recently the KENYAN army killed 21 SHABAAB terrorists after two KENYAN troops were killed in a SHABAAB IED ambush in southern SOMALIA. The KENYAN army is part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

In the past year, ISRAELI counterterrorism and intelligence agencies set up a special command center in the KENYAN port city of MOMBASA to lead operations against the AL QAEDA cells embedded in eastern and southern KENYA. When they met in JERUSALEM, KENYATTA thanked NETANYAHU for ISRAEL’S assistance in breaking up most of those cells.

ETHIOPIA is another EAST AFRICAN country with close military and defense links with ISRAEL that go back many years.

USA INDIFFERENT TO EAST AFRICAN TERROR CONCERNS

KENYATTA explained that ISRAEL was the six governments’ preferred partner for fighting terror, after the UNITED STATES proved indifferent to EAST AFRICAN concerns and limits its contribution to the war on terror to widely-spaced air strikes.

Although a recent US drone attack eliminated 150 Islamist terrorists in SOMALIA, the KENYAN president said that US troops rarely emerge from their navy’s expeditionary base at Camp LEMONNIER in DJIBOUTI to confront AL SHABAAB.

CHINESE ASSISTANCE LIKEWISE REJECTED BY THE EAST AFRICANS DUE TO HIGH “PRICE TAG”

CHINESE efforts to step into the anti-terror void left by the OBAMA administration were likewise rejected by the EAST AFRICANS. They are wary of accepting BEIJING’S military and economic largesse because it comes with a hefty price tag of CHINESE expansionist economic and military footholds in their countries.

EAST AFRICAN COUNTRIES OFFER PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR ISRAEL REGARDING DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

In return for military intelligence assistance for combating terror, the six EAST AFRICAN governments are offering ISRAELI firms preferential treatment for developing their markets. Netanyahu is expected by our sources to visit IGAD member capitals in the coming weeks to cement ties and finalize arrangements.